Interviewing Bush: Lauer’s Lowlights

NBC star Matt Lauer’s one-on-one interview with George W. Bush revealed very little in the way of information, though some lessons could be drawn from Lauer’s mediocre performance. Here was one comment from near the top of the interview:

The Florida recount. Hanging chads. A divided Supreme Court. George Bush had a rough road to the White House.

Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 by half a million. By many reasonable standards, he should have lost the Florida recount too. The Supreme Court made him the president. I’m not sure “rough” is the right way to describe what happened to him.

And then there was this passage on the Iraq War:

LAUER: He says he eventually decided to go to war based on Saddam Hussein’s defiance–and what seemed to be rock-solid intelligence. [To Bush:] On the subject of WMD, George Tenet famously said, “It’s a slam dunk.”

BUSH: Yes. The intelligence.

LAUER: The intelligence is. So by the time you gave the order to start military operations in Iraq, did you personally have any doubt, any shred of doubt, about that intelligence?

BUSH: No, I didn’t. I really didn’t.

LAUER: Not everybody thought you should go to war, though. There were dissenters.

BUSH: Of course there were.

LAUER: Did you filter them out?

BUSH: I was–I was a dissenting voice. I didn’t wanna use force.

Saddam Hussein’s “defiance” of… what, exactly? The U.N. weapons inspections were underway (and were finding little to support U.S. claims about Iraq’s WMD programs). The U.S. failed to win Security Council approval for the military strikes and invasion, but went forward nonetheless.

The problem isn’t merely that Lauer did so little to push back against Bush’s version of history– in this case, he provided it. If Lauer is going to bring up the fact that there were “dissenters”–Bush’s absurd claim that he was one surely deserved some response–he should have pointed out that some of that dissent came early, from people who believed the “slam dunk” intelligence on Iraq’s weapons wasn’t a slam dunk at all. But then you’d be pointing out that one of the favorite media tropes about the Iraq War–that “everyone got it wrong”–is false. And the kind of journalist who would do that is the kind of journalist who wouldn’t win an exclusive interview with George W. Bush.

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Activism Director and and Co-producer of CounterSpinPeter Hart is the activism director at FAIR. He writes for FAIR's magazine Extra! and is also a co-host and producer of FAIR's syndicated radio show CounterSpin. He is the author of The Oh Really? Factor: Unspinning Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly (Seven Stories Press, 2003). Hart has been interviewed by a number of media outlets, including NBC Nightly News, Fox News Channel's O'Reilly Factor, the Los Angeles Times, Newsday and the Associated Press. He has also appeared on Showtime and in the movie Outfoxed. Follow Peter on Twitter at @peterfhart.

[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by mass_writer, FAIR. FAIR said: His exclusive interview with Bush showed why @Matt_Lauer gets chosen to do an exclusive interview with Bush. http://bit.ly/a4IdR9 […]

The deference this bastard is shown by a “journalist” – calling him “sir” illustrative of same – is pretty goddamn galling.

It’s not just Dear Leader, though. Any president, former or current, is accorded such treatment.

Leaving aside the fact that every president is a mass murderer, and should be giving interviews from prison, they’re supposed to be public *servants*, worthy of respect only to the extent that they serve the public good, and never entitled to obsequiousness.

“If Lauer is going to bring up the fact that there were ‘dissenters’–Bush’s absurd claim that he was one surely deserved some response–he should have pointed out that some of that dissent came early, from people who believed the ‘slam dunk’ intelligence on Iraq’s weapons wasn’t a slam dunk at all.”

And, for the record, George Tenet, who made that “slam dunk” comment, insisted he had been taken out of context, and that what he really said was that it was a “slam dunk” that the CIA could make a better case for war than they had been making. This may just be after-the-fact CYA-ism, but, in any event, the comment occurred in December 2002, long after the decision to start a war had been made, and played no part at all in that decision. Neither did the actual intelligence on Iraq. Bush’s claim that HE was a “dissenter” and didn’t want to start a war is, of course, ludicrous. Here are some data-points I assembled from press reports:http://claslib2.tripod.com/lh/ip01.html
I’ve spent a lot of time writing about Iraq on various message boards, and I put together a collection of reported information on the subject, mostly having to do with pre-war manipulation of the Iraq intelligence (they’re all linked through this):http://lefthooktheblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/courage-consequence-and-iraq-papers.html

Very nearly everything there came from mainstream press reports. If I’d more extensively cited my sources (these were, as I said, informal message board posts), they’d serve as a pretty good briefing book for Matt Lauer or anyone else who was going to interview Bush in connection with his godawful book (after all, we wouldn’t want a reporter to actually have to do any work). I don’t imagine they’d get to interview him more than once.

Bush says he was a dissenting voice in invading Iraq. Rather than “dissenting,” it’s possible that Bush was not the dominant voice in the runup.

I believe this was just another topic Bush deferred to staff. It’s possible Rumsfeld and other neo-cons in the inner circle called the shots regarding the runup to war. There were meetings without Bush’s presence. Like Obama is now, more often than not Bush was a puppet or prop for the real owners of the nation.

Well, then, know_then_do, I happen to know for sure that Bush is lying here, just like the bullshit about quitting drinking, “choking on a pretzel,” (remember that one?), and essentially everything else that he drones on about. He most certainly approved of the war, and was enthusiastic for it, like the rest of the lunatics he had in his employ. He’s a liar, and not a very good one. It’s irrelevant if he claims he wasn’t, like dear old dad, “in the loop,” because, like daddy-o, he’s lying, and he’s responsible for the crimes he and others committed on his watch. He’s a criminal nincompoop, and he belongs in prison. The Iraq war is his crime.

is it worth the effort : Lauer liar is just like the rest of them .. ? when Colon Bowell was interviewed by what’s her name BABA walters ; he said the speech at the U.N. was a”BLOT “, on his record ? come again . an ink spot is a blot ? Murder is BLOOD splattered all over your shiny little boys medals ; you know what i mean ,COLON oscopy . Mcain was a Navy pilot , traitor ; rums felt was a Navy pilot , traitor . Tell the Amerikan F Legion and the VFW that BUSH 43 and Cheney,s dick , never served .. HONOR the veterans but not these 4 PTSD from staying home with crazy wives .. pardon my language

Did my eyes deceive me or did they actually set up their little koffee klatch card table inside Bush’s Dallas Methodist church?! Bush milked his “born again” status every day of his criminal presidency (read Al Franken’s “Liars” book to discover how phoney Bush’s religion is), but how the hell did obsequious General Electric NBC get away with this theatrical church charade

Once again, I repeat, that by the time America gets around to “fessing–up” to the High Crimes (screw the misdemeanors) that were incubated to con the US congress (bunch of ignoramases for the most part) to OK Bushes murderous plot (yea, he’s the ringleader in chief) this country will have become an inkblot in the history books of the world. Great concept: nifty Declaration and Constitution: bill of rights was a winner for the most part: did OK by Human rights for a while, after a while: even helped save the world a time or two. Started to recognize the value in everyone in the room for a while too. Lately, though, the selfish bastards have taken over and there’s just not enough awake people to regain controll. Just hangin’, waitin’ for the rapeture. I wonder if they’ll hang me for being a Witch (or a liburall, I don’t know which is worse) before I die of more natural causes? I sometimes can’t get one of the last immages of my 94 year old Mom out of my mind. It was when we were moving her from one facility to another with more care. She was a bright, educated woman who taught Biology at the University Of Nevada in the 1030’s and raised and taught the Golden Rule to three children, and never swore in her life to my knowledge to that point. But there she was, as we packaged up the last remenants of her life, 14 years after she lost my father (also a University professor, 40 years, Geology, to dementia) standing in the corner, staring at the wall muttering “shit, shit, shit shit” over and over. That’s kind of the way I’m beginning to feel, and I’m not quite 70 yet. I want “my” damn country back. Not the mythical one of the gap-toothed fundamentalist morons, historically challenged and afraid to look to the future. The one where we were beginning to show some real progress in human relations. Shit……..Shit……..Shit.

Let me explain Saddams defiance.
When he signed the surrender document in the first gulf war their were 17 major caveats.ALL OF WHICH HE HAD BROKEN by the time Bush started his final demands. Any one of which…. should of resulted in a resumption of the war as per military protocol. Clinton in his book stated that a resumption of war was inevitable, as this flaunting of the accord moved on. Saddam admitted (on his literal deathbed) that he had no intention of giving away the idea that he still had WMDs, as his fear of Iran was greater than his belief that America would ever move against him.He also said that “as the lion of judea- he had the right to develop and use nuclear and bio weapons and use them against Israel if need be”.So lets not in our attacking Bush leave him as some sort of victim.He played a dangerous game and ejecting the inspectors that could of ended this brinksmanship was a last straw at a pivotal moment in US history.We were on a knifes edge after 911, and mistakes followed..

“ejecting the inspectors that could of ended this brinksmanship was a last straw at a pivotal moment in US history.”

Which is why George W. Bush should not have told the inspectors to leave. Saddam had nothing to do with their ejection. The only question is whether you know you are repeating a literally damnable lie, and if so, whether you’re even a little bit worried that they might actually be a Hell.

Indeed, it was one of the best-kept secrets of the corporate press that the UMOVIC inspectors had systematically dismantled Bush’s entire case for war before Bush ever launched it. The administrations’ demand that the inspectors be allowed to return to Iraq was made, in 2002, with the assumption that Iraq would refuse, thus creating a legal pretext for war. Assuming no inspectors would ever be able to look into its claims, the administration regaled the public with all manner of fanciful stories of resumed WMD activities at this-or-that facility, sometimes even offering satellite imagery to back up the claim. When Saddam actually did allow UNMOVIC back into Iraq, the administrations’ claims were immediately put to the test, with telling results.

The Los Angeles Times and the AP were two of the very few outlets in the U.S. that even bothered to write about the ongoing inspections in Iraq before the war. On 19 Jan., 2003, the AP reported that

“In almost two months of surprise visits across Iraq, U.N. arms monitors have inspected 13 sites identified by U.S. and British intelligence agencies as major ‘facilities of concern,’ and reported no signs of revived weapons building.”

As an example of what was being turned up, the administration had claimed an animal vaccine plant (Al-Dawrah) previously used to produce botulinum toxin was operating again; inspectors “found it abandoned and full of trash.” A little later, the L.A. Times reported that, after 350 inspections, the inspectors had found nothing to support the Bush allegations. Inspectors examined, among other places, the Qaim phosphates complex in western Iraq, another identified by the Bush regime the previous fall; they found “mostly rubble on a near-vacant lot.” The administration had publicly claimed

“that Baghdad had rebuilt and expanded factories that also could produce chemical weapons. The ‘best examples,’ it said, were the chlorine and phenol production plants at Fallujah II, which was bombed in 1991.”

Inspectors discovered that the plant was inoperative, and equipment sealed by previous inspections was still present and accounted for. Gathering dust. The administration

“said Iraq had begun renovating or constructing facilities at several sites secretly used to produce biological agents for germ warfare in the 1980s, including the Al Dawrah Foot-and-Mouth Disease Vaccine Facility, the Amiriyah Serum and Vaccine Institute, and the Fallujah III Castor Oil Production Plant. U.N. inspectors have now visited all three sites several times. They searched warehouses, refrigerators, trucks and laboratories, checked equipment, and took soil and water samples. Some of the buildings were abandoned shells, while others had limited operations. No evidence was found that Iraq is using the facilities to produce microbes for banned weapons.”

And so on. The Bush administration sent the inspectors on one wild-goose-chase after another–one inspector described the Bush information they were getting as “garbage after garbage after garbage.” The administration’s response was to claim this was evidence of the ineffectiveness of the inspection regime.

And these reports, which gutted the case for war, made barely a dent in the rest of the press.

and if any of you haven’t seen “The Green Zone” yet, it basically chronicles just the series of events classicliberal2 just enumerated and the deception behind it. Only the ending was changed demonstrate what should have taken place (I think).

Thanks ‘Classicliberal2′ for the home-made links. You condensed the info from that era in a very useful way. Then — as now — I recall being struck by a sense of disbelief… of how this anti-Iraq talk just seemed to come out of left field (non-political speaking), out of nowhere, while we were all still focused on the Afghanistan ‘war’ (ie; bombing the shit out of another 3rd world country). I remember reading a lot of the same articles/info (on the Internet, but seldom in the MSM) you’ve compiled at the time leading up to the Iraq invasion, and realizing that ‘this is what Nazi Germany was very-much like in the late 1930s-early 1940s’. This was the kind of crazy, non-credible, strained propaganda that they were exposed to and lapped-up back then, just like the MSM was doing here in the US. I used to wonder how the German citizens back then would willingly go along with those activities, but now I don’t wonder…

To myself and many other critics, another one of the biggest problems with W’s pursuit of this whole Iraq ‘war’ was that – – – EVEN if he DID 100% believe that Iraq was building WMDs, what right did we or any other country have in attacking him as long as he wasn’t attacking anyone else?? There are plenty of countries with WMDs, but as long as they’re not attacking anyone, they shouldn’t be subject to attack by individual countries. That’s the whole basis of the UN charter, of which the US & Britain are signatories. And with international inspectors freely roaming the Iraq countryside, what possible rush could there be to start a WAR, the most major crime, where thousands or tens-of-thousands of innocent people INEVITABLY get killed/injured/dispossed? None, unless you were trying to start a war for obscure power/resource reasons….

(Most) everyone posting here undoubtably recalls seeking out (and finding) the all too obvious incongruities that disputed the “data” presented by the Administration and bolstered by the MSM post 911. Much came from PBS which had not yet been co-opted by pressure from the right. We with open minds and curiosity knew then, well before the iraqi invasion that Bush et. al. were rewriting history AS it was occurring. There was no refusal on the part of Saddam to admit unfettered access anywhere in the country; the inspectors were recalled by US. All inspections that were carried out before the US mandated as well as those conducted post invasion came up empty. Saddam, rebuked for resubmitting old info when required to update his countries WMD efforts had NO NEW DATA TO REVEAL. The “Yellow Cake Uraineum” hoax had been uncovered by Joe Wilson with it’s devastating result. The UN inspectors (particularly Scott Ritter) lectured Coast to Coast to debunk the notion that any programs or production had resumed for which he was smeared). General Powell’s “low Point” appearance before the United Nations was a shamefull and obvious sham to any of us who witnessed a similar one preceeding the Cuban Missle Chrisis. The Downing Street Memos had been leaked and we knew the evidence was being cooked to fit the desired intent. In the weeks following the invasion I had an arguement with a righty who said that I hoped that no WMD’s would be found just because I hated Bush and the conservatives and that I was a traitor. Either: you all, and I, were smarter than most of the congress, the administration and the MSM; we were just damn lucky and not well informed at all; the evidence for resumption (I’ve never seen any yet) was somehow more frightening and compelling than that against; or the administration cooked up facts to justify their desire to get back as Saddam for what he tried to do to Bush 1, or controll oil production for non Arab oil companies regardless of the cost, or both, and more. I’m betting on the latter. They then bullied a weak, mostly ignorant and fearfull Congress and UN with images of mushroom clouds and dispersed bio chemicals (remember the anthrax letters and how the investigation went nowhere until one “scientist” chose ” suicide”) until they gave him permission to “threaten” Iraq with invasion if they didn’t “fess up” which he new they couldn’t. WMD’s my Aunt Ana’s stuffed goose! How history will treat George Bush and his “Lauer Lowlights” and “Memoirs misinformation Manuscript” may, or may not reflect the facts it is based on. If not, it will reflect on conditions in the present and will impact decisions in the future. I’ve stated here before that if events in the recent past are allowed to become history without recognition of how they have tragically impacted human rights, the furure appears no better than the present, and perhaps much worse. ( And I did have an Aunt Ana, and she did fatten a goose for the holidays by stuffing food down it’s gullet daily. She died of diabetis).

Wow! if you cannot rely on the “left leaning lamestream press” to give you the lowdown then I’m afraid all is lost, simply lost. What’s a bleeding heart liberal to do. Truth be told, where war is concerned the MSM is not liberal, but instead ultraconservative. MSM is liberal on things like abortion, SS and Medicare, women’s rights, Gay rights, Animal rights, economics….wait …not sure about the last one, uh….. immigration…..probably liberal. Bush is a war criminal….so’s Cheney and Rumsfeld….. and he does get credit for the war in Iraq; it was a big mistake and was used as a pawn for the crony capitalism of the Bush administration.

The war machine went into action giving corporate soldiers the mandate to pillage, plunder and generally mess up the Iraqis’ lives. Oh, and don’t forget the massive USA military in all its glory. And after all is said the real tragedy comes when it was made plain that it was the right thing to do, a definite pay off of enormous proportions for after all we were not attacked by aL Qaeda in the US…….but 4600 soldiers dead in Iraq, 130,000 Iraqis dead(men, women, children), 3 million displaced Iraqis, damaged respect in the world, loss of credibility in the world, trillions of dollars to execute the Iraqi war……stacked onto the deficit. Could just a terrorist attack be the justification? What about being attacked economically? How about increased paranoia regarding a terrorist attack…..does that not also incur a cost to being attacked?

Matt Lauer did nothing but toss softnalls at Bush and allowed him to get away with not answering for his crimes. Oprah did a better job, but still didn’t put him to shame by asking pointed questions about the Iraq war and his botched presidency. Why didn’t Matt ask him about his firing of the lawyers who Bush claimed were in the wrong. There is information going around about Bush stacking the Supreme Court with conservatives and then hiring a conservative to watch over the hiring of lawyers who were of the correct mind, i.e., conservatives. What about the Civil Rights Commission, the setback of environmental regulations, the de-emphasis of regulation of Wall street leading to the crash?

Oh, and the tax cuts of 2001,2003; which according to Bush, the ones to benefit the most were the poor folks. The tax cuts were set to expire because they were not paid for and were just heaped on to the deficit. Yes, there was a rule that did not allow for a period of ten years the furthering of the tax cuts, which did not as some think create a lot of economic growth. And it was Bush that bailed out the banks, not President Obama. Bush tried, at the insistance of Paulson, to pass the legislation for the bailout in the fall, but Congress did not pass it, due to the People calling their lawmakers and the general upheaval of the people protesting the action. But something happened; a few weeks later, Bush tried again and without a lot of fanfare like before when Bush tried to pass the 2 page bill, it was passed. I don’t know how, but somebody was snookered. Then there was the pharmaceutical giveaway to Big Pharma, which did not include a way to negotiate the drug charges. Now the only problem with Medicare Part D was that it was not paid for, but instead heaped onto the deficit. I benefited from the drug plan so it is hard for me to find fault, but still, why not there be a way to lower the costs through negotiation?

Yes, Matt, you left Bush unchallenged over many things. Frankly, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Karl Rove(due to his influence) should be held accountable for their lies and distortion of the truth about the Iraqi war, and commiting the US to engage in torture. Bush is guilty and he knows no shame for what he has done. Truly amazing.

We found out after the Vietnam war about the exaggeration of the Vietcong war casualties and other top officials’ lies about the Vietnam war that killed tens of thousands of Americans and Vietnamese men, women and children; to add to that our sacrosanct sentiments about firebombing Cambodia, of which nothing was mentioned about it recently in a talk given by Hillary Clinton in the Cambodian area.

Ah, yes, American exceptionality. Should we be so proud of ourselves? I say these things, not because I hate America, but because I love America and I know she screwed up, big time.